I heard about the problem a while ago and just thought myself, "enjoy it while it lasts..." thankfully I stumbled upon the tutorial by chance and got right on buying new batteries and opening up my old games :D

It's not that they work or don't. It's the fact that there's an internal battery inside of each cartridge that WILL burn out in time, and when it does, it's going to wipe all save files on that cartridge.

my gba pokemon yellow, ruby etc got corrupted along time ago i didnt care i played through them and moved on when i lost my ps3 saves twice i mourned i had lost all my oblivion heavy rain saves(i was close to getting that trophy for doing all the endings) along with a plethora of others but now i game on pc as well and cloud storage is nice

My GBA Pokemon Yellow, Ruby, etc. got corrupted a long time ago. I didn't care. I played through them and moved on. When I lost my PS3 saves twice, I mourned. I had lost all my Oblivion and Heavy Rain saves, along with a plethora of others. Now, I game on PC, as well. Cloud storage is nice.

This hasn't happened to anyone yet? I had Yellow since it came out and had all 151 Pokemon with 382 hours. When I put it back in (2009?) the file was gone and whenever I saved afterwords, it didn't work. To be honest I felt closure more than anything, with everything complete there was nothing else to do.

Before you do this, it would probably be a good idea to get the Mega Memory Card for Gameboy Color, to back up your save file, just in case you don't do it right. Actually, it would be a good idea to get one of those anyway.

My Pokemon Gold already did which sucks, but Yellow is still working. I don't see the need to change the battery though, I just copied the team I beat the Elite 4 with for the first time and saved it as a word document.

You can actually download the save from the cartridge(if it hasen't died yet) for use on emulators and backup purposes. It will cost like $50 bucks for the EMS Smart Card USB and Mega Memory Card but now I should always have a copy of my childhood.

Holy crap, thanks for this article. I remember playing pokemon so much back in the day. I still got the cartridges around here. I seriously need to back them up then! Too many memories to let them die. I don't feel confident doing the battery thing (I'm a bit incompetent). Will look into the "Mega Memory Card" thing then.

I'm too afraid to check if my carts are still functioning. Realising I've lost thousands of hours of grinding, hundreds of Pokemons and dozens of level 100 beasts is not something I'd take lightly. Will have to at some point to find out if there's something left to save, though.